'We Live in Time' review: Beautiful love story earns its laughs and tears

When you’re browsing the homepage of your favorite streaming services, they usually have recommendations for you based on your previous viewing patterns. Under the heading of “Movies We Think You’ll Like” on Amazon Prime Video, for example, they think I’ll like “Heat,” “The Spanish Prisoner,” “Breaker Morant,” “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Serpico” and “Jackie Brown,” among other titles. Good job!

Which brings us to the rom-dramedy “We Live in Time,” starring Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh as a couple who are destined to spend the rest of their lives together — if fate will allow it. If you loved Leo and Kate in “Titanic,” Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore in “Ghost, Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams in “The Notebook” and all the stars in all the “Star is Born” films, you’ll likely feel the same way about Garfield and Pugh in this unabashedly sentimental and warmly funny modern romance.

This is the kind of movie that has a TRAILER that can move you to tears. You might be rolling your eyes at the steady parade of familiar tropes and the sheer movie-ness of this movie, but that’s also what makes it so lovely and beautiful. Pugh and Garfield have an instant chemistry that rings true in an unapologetically sentimental story with just the right amount of humor sprinkled in. Bring tissues.

Director John Crowley (“Brooklyn,” “The Goldfinch”) and screenwriter Nick Payne (best known for an illustrious career in the theater) lean heavily into the heightened-reality element of a movie romance while still keeping the story grounded in reality; we instantly believe and quickly become invested in the relationship between Pugh’s Almut, a tart-tongued, rising-star chef who specializes in Anglo-Bavarian cuisine, and Garfield’s Tobias, an amiable chap who works for Weetabix, makers of fine breakfast cereals. (We see a number of finely detailed scenes of Almut in the kitchen and we meet some of her co-workers, whereas Tobias is never seen on the job, which is mostly referenced in a running joke.) That title of “We Live in Time” reflects the shifting framing of the story, which toggles back and forth between three distinctive periods in the story of Almut and Tobias:

• The End: Almut and Tobias learn Almut’s cancer has returned, and Almut must decide whether to forego aggressive treatment and have “six f---ing amazing ... months” or extend her time with aggressive medical treatment and have “12 really, really s---ty ones.” (Of course, there’s always the unspoken hope of a miraculous and total recovery.)
• The Middle: Almut is in remission from her first bout of cancer and is debating whether to have a full hysterectomy and thus lower the risk of recurrence, or a partial procedure so she can have children.
• The Beginning: A British version of “How I Met Your Mother” without the narration, including a rather brutal Meet Cute when Almut smashes into Tobias with her car and waits for him to wake up in the hospital so she can introduce herself and say, “I ran you over.”

This is a film that delivers its own spoilers early and often. Back and forth we go, sometimes in dizzying fashion and without the benefit of title cards, though it’s relatively easy to keep up with the time periods via Almut’s hairstyle and whether she’s in the courtship phase with Tobias, pregnant with their child, or the couple is with their adorable daughter Ella (Grace Delaney). Whether Tobias is marveling at Almut as she explains the proper way to crack an egg, casting a loving glance at her across a crowded room, or filling their flat in South London with a bounty of Movie Candles, “We Live in Time” is pure romance. This is Almut’s story and Pugh gives a deeply empathetic performance, but it’s just as much about Tobias, with Garfield’s expressive eyes conveying a myriad of emotions.

One scene plays like a tribute to a certain famous moment in “Jerry Maguire.” On another occasion, Tobias sounds like he’s channeling Hugh Grant’s “I think I love you” speech from “Four Weddings and a Funeral” when he tells Almut, “I’m worried there’s a very distinct and real possibility that I am about to fall in love with you.” Meanwhile, Almut has a wonderfully direct way of getting to the point, a la Ali MacGraw in “Love Story,” as when she says to Tobias, “I’m sorry, but what the actual f---- are you talking about right now?”

With Pugh and Garfield delivering authentic, genuine movie-star performances, “We Live in Time” is an old-fashioned weeper, done with heart and originality. It’s a Movie We Think You’ll Like.